Pregnant woman arrested for eating sandwich @ store, not paying for it

[IDrinkaRum]

Pregnant woman and her husband arrested after she openly eats a deli sandwich while shopping then forgets to pay for the $5 sandwich at the register.

Pregnant woman & husband & 3-year-old daughter went on shopping trip in their new home city of Honolulu. Ended up at a Safeway grocery store. Wife eats deli sandwich while shopping. Forgets to give wrapper to cashier, as they leave security detains them. She offers to pay for the sandwiches, but store policy is that once the items leave the store, you can't pay for them. Parents are arrested (released on $50 bail each). Because daughter was with them, CPS was called by cops and taken from parents. Daughter spent 18 hours in CPS custody.

Parents are mortified, and they're mulling over whether or not to pursue legal action against the store.

[Andara Bledin]

Wow. This is way over the line in the other direction than we usually hear.

This is, however, a very good warning of why if you need to eat before you're done shopping, you go up and pay for what you're going to eat on its own, and then return to your shopping.

^-.-^

[Greenday]

Parents are mortified, and they're mulling over whether or not to pursue legal action against the store.

They can try but I don't see what case they'd have. What they did was technically theft and if the store wants to pursue legal action by calling the cops, that's their right. Is it right that the store did that? No. But they didn't do anything legally wrong that'd give the woman and her husband a lawsuit.

[AdminAssistant]

What they did was technically theft and if the store wants to pursue legal action by calling the cops, that's their right. Is it right that the store did that? No. But they didn't do anything legally wrong that'd give the woman and her husband a lawsuit.

I agree. Also, the fact that the woman is pregnant is irrelevant. Pregnancy may make your body crave more food, but it is possible to survive a shopping trip without a sandwich.

[tropicsgoddess]

The way the store handled it was way out of line, IMO ) pregnancy or not she did intend to pay for it but instead of allowing her to pay for it and being on her merry way, she gets arrested and her child is separated from her for it.

[Greenday]

The way the store handled it was way out of line, IMO ) pregnancy or not she did intend to pay for it but instead of allowing her to pay for it and being on her merry way, she gets arrested and her child is separated from her for it.

Why does it matter if she intended to pay for it? She walked out without paying. That's theft. By that logic, I could do some target practice in my backyard and if I miss and shoot someone, I should get a slap on the wrist at most since I didn't intend to shoot them.

[Rageaholic]

I've actually done something like that before. I went back to my car to get something and didn't realize I was holding an unpayed bottle of soda. I rushed back into the store and apologized. They were pretty apologetic.

As for this story, the real wallbanger lies with the store policy of not allowing her to pay for the sandwich after it left the store. Since she was willing to pay, this could have been easily resolved, but because of strict adhearance to stupid useless rules, she ended up in jail and the kids almost got taken away from her.

[MaggieTheCat]

But she wanted to pay for the sandwiches once they detained her. It's not like she threw a fit and insisted she not pay. She tried to pay and they wouldn't let her and instead had her arrested. How does that help anyone? The store is out the $5 that the sandwiches are worth and probably a bunch of time in filing the police report. The parents are out $100 for bail and lost custody of their daughter for a night. All of which could have been avoided if the store had let her hand over the $5 and let her go. What good did having her arrested do anyone?

I agree, what they did was stupid and wrong and they don't have a case to sue the grocery store. But the store handled the whole situation pretty poorly.

[Rageaholic]

Why does it matter if she intended to pay for it? She walked out without paying. That's theft. By that logic, I could do some target practice in my backyard and if I miss and shoot someone, I should get a slap on the wrist at most since I didn't intend to shoot them.

Apples and Oranges. You can't undo a shooting since the damage is already done. But if you accidentally steal something, you can still pay for it once it is realized. Since this error was realized so quickly, the arrest was really unnecessary.

[insertNameHere]

Of course nobody has considered the fact she might have very well intended to steal the sandwich and got caught. Logic tells you if you fail at stealing it best to go "my bad, here is the money". It is nice to see a store with a policy actually enforcing it. Now, had she previously paid for the sandwich before consuming it and been accused of stealing I could see the outrage. As that is what Wal-mart attempted to do to me because I refused to let the door gaurd power trip me and demand a recepit when I had walked 20 ft from the register to the door with 4dvds in a bag as she ignored the couple wheeling a TV past her with NO employee help from the back of the store.

[Greenday]

Apples and Oranges. You can't undo a shooting since the damage is already done. But if you accidentally steal something, you can still pay for it once it is realized. Since this error was realized so quickly, the arrest was really unnecessary.

You can't barf up a whole sandwich so I'd say the damage was already done.

[Andara Bledin]

You can't barf up a whole sandwich so I'd say the damage was already done.

Nice straw man. Payment for sandwich = no damage. If you're going to do comparisons, try to at least keep within the realm of things that can be made whole again.

After all, the company is in the business of selling sandwiches, not keeping them uneaten, so their goal is to get paid, and once she offered to pay, that should have been the end of it.

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[Rebel]

Where I work, if you leave the store with product you haven't paid for, you've just stolen from us.
Even if you offer to pay for it, it's still too little too late. At that point, it's like they think stealing is okay as long as you don't get caught.

My stores policy is very strict. If you have stolen from us, even if it's just a crappy $1.00 item, then you are automatically banned from the store.
If it's more serious, security from the mall we work in is called and they escort you from the property.
Even more serious, police are called and we press charges. And any customer that asks what is happening, we will gladly point out that you stole from us and this was your consequence.

Stores have policies for shoplifters to try discourage people from shoplifting. You steal, you get caught, you face the consequences.

Did the woman steal?
Yep.
Did she try to play down the crime?
Yep.
Is she trying to go for the sympathy vote from the public?
Very much so.

At the end of the day, it wasn't the store that separated her from her child. It was her stupid actions and a decision that resulted from the CPS agent who was assigned the case. She committed a crime which made CPS want to review her ability as a mother for the welfare of the child involved, as is their job.

Safeway didn't take her child away, they just had a shoplifter banned from their store and handed over to the police, as is their policy.

It's unfortunate that all this happened. And I do feel sorry for the child being separated from her parents, but the only real story here is that the woman stole, was caught, was arrested, then made bail. Her having a child or being pregnant is irrelevant.

Next time maybe she'll pay for the sandwiches before eating them.

[Kaylyn]

I agree that, yes, it is possible that she's trying to garner sympathy from the public, and that perhaps the theft was intentional and she only offered to make reparations for the theft when caught. But I also think a lot can be read from how she handled herself upon being confronted with the (in my opinion, accidental) theft.

Did she have a moment where she made the "oh, shit, I got caught" face before composing herself and apologizing? Or did she seem absolutely shocked and mortified when she realized what she'd done? Or somewhere in between, or perhaps shrugged and didn't think it was a big deal as long as she paid?

I know if it were me, I'd turn about fifty shades of red and fall all over myself apologizing for my error. I know, because it happened to me. Well, my mom, actually, but I was involved. My mom was shopping early one morning and we needed a map for some reason. She set the map in the top part of the shopping cart and wound up setting her purse down on top of it mid-trip. We paid and got all the way out to the car before she realized she hadn't paid for the map. So she sent me in with the money, I apologized on her behalf and paid, and everything was fine.

I just think the store went WAY overboard in what appears to be an honest mistake. Yes, technically it was attempted theft as she attempted to leave without paying for an item, but as she was polite and apologetic and not throwing an entitlement tantrum or scoffing about it, I think they really should have given her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps said that in the future, please pay in advance for food or drink you plan to consume while shopping. But this was a bit much, in my opinion. I mean, come on, she did make a decent-sized purchase...it seems pretty obvious to me that she simply forgot this one item.

[Andara Bledin]

Did the woman steal?
Yep.

Not necessarily. Intent matters, even in situations that seem very much cut and dried.

In point of fact, in Hawaii, larceny is defined as "the intentional taking of another person's property without legal permission."

If they cannot prove that she intended to take the sandwich and not pay for it, then she actually has a case against them and not the other way around.

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